Gore Verbinski Discusses Cancelled BioShock Movie

Gore Verbinski, director of The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the upcoming A Cure For Wellness, is known for his stunning visual style and strange, immersive worlds. Fans of the BioShock game were thrilled when Verbinski was chosen to direct a film adaptation of the mad world of Rapture, an underwater utopia gone violently wrong, back in 2009. These eager fans were then disappointed when the project was cancelled in 2011 only eight weeks before filming and Verbinski stepped down as director.

In an Ask Me Anything (AMA) post on Reddit, one user asked Verbinski to elaborate on what had happened to the film. The director responded that there was no short answer, but cited the movie's R rating and budget as the main factors that led Universal to drop the project.

"It's an R rated movie. I wanted to keep it R rated, I felt like that would be appropriate, and it's an expensive movie. It's a massive world we're creating and it's not a world we can simply go to locations to shoot," he explained. "We'd be building an entire underworld universe. So I think the combination of the price tag and the rating, universal just didn't feel comfortable ultimately."

Despite these obstacles, many users continue to hope that some day, they can visit BioShock through the world of cinema. His upcoming movie, A Cure For Wellness, has some scenes of underwater terror, which makes us wonder if some of his unused BioShock ideas will surface here.

As far as video game movies have been going, this may have been for the best. But I still would like to see Bioshock hit the big screen. As much as I love the original game, I feel like Infinite might translate a little bit better. You have a good solid Hollywood story about a man trying to save a girl as opposed to the more artistic concept Bioshock had.

The idea that the Bioshock movie needed to be R rated kind of confounds me. The game itself was rated "mature", but not because of the gore. I'm fairly sure you could get away with the 'drug use" and violence with a PG-13 rating. Anyway what do I know? Guess it's just not meant to be for now.

I understand the appeal of someone's favorite video game being adapted into a feature film, however, I'm over this. Unless it's a CG film being made by the same company that developed/published the game, it usually doesn't live up to the video game. Hollywood and even the director change so much for either the sake of the audience or for their own interpretation. When they alter the original plot, the characters, and their relations, if not taking them out entirely, it might as well be its own movie separate from the franchise. It would help the movie avoid backlash from fans of the franchise, as most of the time, the director and anyone else working on the movie often isn't aware of the video game before taking on the project. I do understand that some of these films use the title of a video game to boost their marketing, but mostly, it's disappointing.